NASA Sees Giant Solar Wave Erupt from the Sun (Video)

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The sun celebrated May Day with a spectacular solar eruption
Wednesday, unleashing a colossal wave of super-hot plasma
captured on camera by a NASA spacecraft.

The solar eruption occurred over a 2.5-hour period Wednesday (May
1) and appeared as a
"gigantic rolling wave" on the sun in a video recorded
by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, agency officials said in an
image description. The solar eruption is what scientists call a
coronal mass ejection (CME) — a type of sun storm that can fire
off billions of tons of solar material at more than a million
miles per hour, they added.

When aimed directly at Earth, the most powerful CME events can
pose a risk to satellites and astronauts in orbit, as well as
interfere with communications and navigation networks. They can
even damage ground-based power infrastructure.

But the May Day solar eruption occurred on the side of the sun
and was not aimed at Earth, NASA officials said. It produced a
dazzlingly bright wave of plasma that expanded from the sun's
surface and then erupted from the sun's side, or limb, into open
space.

The sun is currently in an active phase of its 11-year solar
weather cycle and is expected to reach its peak activity this
year.

NASA's
Solar Dynamics Observatory is one of several sun-watching
spacecraft that keeps constant watch on Earth's nearest star to
track solar weather patterns and storm events. The $850 million
SDO mission launched in 2010 and records constant high-definition
views of the sun in several different wavelengths, including the
extreme ultraviolet range of the light spectrum used to make the
video of the May 1 solar eruption.